kramnoj

This is basically the Alfonso Soriano contract, minus a year. If the Nationals are lucky, Werth may still be a decent player when Strasburgh and Harper on the team. Chances are that he will be a nice player on a team that isn't competing for a couple of years, maybe the Nationals put together a competing team for a couple of years, and then the Nationals can only hope that the back end of this contract works out better than Soriano, Carlos Lee, or Helton.

At this point a #3 would improve the rotation, and that's pretty much what's going to be available on the FA market.

Do you have reason to believe Melvin wants to trade Fielder? Sure, he wants to improve the club anyway he can, and trading Fielder could be a great way to do that, depending on the return, but I don't see any reason to believe that Melvin has a specific goal of trading Fielder away. Clearly we can't take everything GM's say at face value, but Melvin has said that he doesn't want to be the guy that trades Fielder away. He likened it to trading away Gretzky. Now, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but it might give some insight into how Melvin would like to build a club for 2011.

The Yankees and Arod came up with a marketing agreement that pays him for milestone HR, from Cots $30M marketing agreement based on home run milestones ($6M each for reaching 660, 714, 755 and tying and breaking major league HR record). Other than that, it does seem that bonuses are paid for games started, games finished and games played.

The first hit on Google gave me this info, which seems similar to data I've seen before: 1st contract season: $850/month maximum. After that, open to negotiation Alien Salary Rates: Different for aliens on visas--mandated by INS (Immigration). Class AAA--First year: $2,150/month, after first year no less than $2,150/month Class AA-First year: $1,500/month, after first year no less than $1,500/month Class A (full season)--First year: $1,050/month, after first year no less than $1,050/month Class A (short-season)--First year: $850/month, after first year no less than $850/month Dominican & Venezuelan Summer Leagues--no lower than $300/month Meal Money: $20 per day at all levels, while on the road Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q...ayers_make#ixzz16AOltaiv I believe that when the Brewers affiliate was in WV some, if not most, of the players stayed with host families to reduce the cost of living. I know that happened with the Northern league when I used to live in those cities.

Maybe it was all false bravado but he seemed to think he was entitled to the starting CF job. I have many worries about RRR and the biggest one is seeing a lineup topped by Escobar and Gomez/Cain. Gomez has been benched by at least 2 different managers at this point and has shown nothing to indicate he thinks his approach is the problem. Gomez did have different words after seeing Cain capably replace him. ""I'm not out of the lineup because I'm a bad center fielder or because I'm slow," Gomez said. "It's because I don't get on base consistent. If I get on base more consistent, there's no question about whether I'm going to play every day." *********** "I'm not going to say I'm happy, but I have to be positive, no matter what the [situation] is," he said. "I'm here every day to do my work in the cage, and whether I play or not, every day for me is the same. If I'm in the lineup, I know I have to produce. I know I have to get on base. My teammates are never going to see me upset, they never see me complaining. They know I want to play." And if Cain is the everyday center fielder next season and Gomez finds himself in a reserve role again? "A job is a job," he said. "I'm not thinking right now like I'm going to be a bench player. I'm 24 years old and next year I'll be 25. You're going to see in Spring Training that whoever does the best job is going to be the guy. If [a bench] job is the only job I can get, you have to take it." from: http://milwaukee.brewers....k_mil&fext=.jsp&c_id=mil

Suppan was exactly the same crappy pitcher with the Cardinals he was with the Brewers. That's true. But that's better than what Parra was able to give the Brewers in 2010, which is what I think would be relevant as to whether Suppan was cut too early.

He waited about as long as possible to get rid of Hall That's a good amount of time to wait. Reacting quicker than that can lead to poor decisions. The whole Casey/Gamel/Hall thing should have been handled better, but it's understandable that Melvin wanted to see if Hall's value could be recovered. Given that Hall had quite a decent season in 2010, it supports the notion that Hall was not a lost cause. It's the managers call on removing Gagne and Hoffman There's no way this happens without the blessing of the GM. And he also waited WAY too long to get rid of Suppan. This is a popular opinion, but can't be supported by facts. Suppan pitched decently for the Cardinals this year. So I would tend to think that he'll hold onto Gomez for too long as well. It is certainly possible that Melvin will hold onto Gomez for too long, but you said that Melvin won't admit his mistake. Those are two different things, and you would have to provide evidence to back up your claim.

That would mean that Doug would be admitting his mistake. Won't happen. Gomez may or may not be non-tendered, but I don't think Melvin's pride is going to be the driving factor. Hall was traded with Milwaukee paying the vast majority of his contract, Gagne lost his job, Hoffman lost his job, Suppan was cut. There's not much evidence to support the notion that Melvin won't do something out of pride.

This may be common knowledge, but Hinske has the fun distinction of appearing on 3 consecutive WS teams, each year a different team, all in the same division. He's also now been in the playoffs for 4 consecutive years, each with a different team. He'd be a decent insurance guy if he's not paid too much. MLBTR suspects it may take 2 years to get him. That wouldn't be preferable, but we'll see.

Per MLBTR, per Twitter, per a radio station, Cuban is reportedly not interested in owning the Astros.

The Yankees are used to having other teams give them contracts they want to get rid of. In some of these cases, the teams are willing to send away one of their players and pay the Yankees to take a portion of the contract. The Yankees would have been happy to take Cameron, but misunderstood the Brewers intentions. They thought the Brewers were dumping Cameron, and reacted accordingly. That's why they started with asking the Brewers to pay part of the Cameron contract, and then countered by asking the Brewers to take Igawa.

That proposal never reached almost status. There's enough stuff that Melvin has done that we can complain about, there's no reason to make up stuff. Melvin explored trading Cameron to the Yankees, with Melky as a fill-in until Cain would be ready, and he wanted a young pitcher from the Yankees in exchange. Cashman wasn't willing to do that, so the conversation stopped.

Too many of you are reading this incorrectly as the Brewers ditching all trade attempts and thinking they're on the cusp of an extension. They're not. I don't see evidence of a single person saying they are on the cusp of an extension. I also don't see anyone advocating trading Fielder just to trade him. Which posts are you reading that would inspire these comments? If you are going to start a post by telling us what we need to clearly get through our minds, it would be helpful to have a clear understanding of what people actually have said.

Every move Melvin has made has shortened the competitive window of the team, every single move, even Sabathia. This is just useless hyperbole, right? Signing Cameron, Branyan, Edmonds, trading for Torres, they all shortened the competitive window?

Like all economics stats it is based on a perfect market and only is theoretical so will Weeks get paid what the dollar amount is? I don't think this is true. I thought it was based on the money that teams pay players in FA, and then compares it to to player production. I don't know if they wait a year to see actual production, or if they use a weighted average or a projection to determine the player value. Anyway, one of the reasons that player values seems so out of whack is because people usually focus on player peak seasons and laugh at the value provided, and don't mention the crazy money that is thrown away each for average or below production. The below example is I imagine an extreme example, but it's something I put together recently. I might have missed one or two players, but I don't think it changes the main point. The 2010 Brewers are an extreme case, but it is part of the data used in how teams spend money to try to get wins. I'll use Bref WAR, just because it's easier for me to reference and track. I'll just be using 2010 salary and WAR. For this, I'll just look at FA contracts signed before the 2010 season (it would look worse for the Brewers if I included Hoffman and Riske, but I'm trying to isolate spending in one off-season) Wolf $9.25M 1.9 WAR Hawkins $3M -.9 WAR Davis $5.25M -1.5 WAR Zaun $2.15M .4 WAR Counsell$2.1M 0 WAR Vargas $900k -.5 WAR Edmonds $850k 1.6 WAR Loe $400k .8 WAR $23.9M 1.8 WAR It actually goes up to 2.2 WAR if I include pitcher hitting. So if I include all value per Bref, the Brewers spent $10.8M per Win for 2010 in the 2009-2010 off-season. Again, that is extreme, but that is the kind of stuff that is included in the value calculations and is either ignored or dismissed by many of its critics. ************************ Back to Weeks. I was previously against signing him, as I was not sure he was going to put together a good, healthy season. I was also naively hopeful that the Brewers and Prince would agree to a reasonable contract, and didn't think paying for Weeks would make sense, compared to all other needs the Brewers would have. But here we are now, Weeks was great, the Brewers have young pitching that is progressing, and with the presumption that Fielder is gone after 2011, the Brewers can sign Weeks to a 4 year deal or so for near market rate. If, in 2012, the Brewers have one too many players that are major league average or above in Braun, Hart, Weeks, Casey, Lawrie and Gamel, and not enough positions to play them, they can go ahead and trade one of them at that time. But retaining Weeks would be good insurance for when Casey declines, or if Gamel doesn't pan out as much as we would hope.

We can all try to read Melvin speak, but I think he is being honest here. Let's not look at this from a Brewer fan perspective. Let's look at this from any other team. Look at all the talent that is available to play 1B or DH. Prince is probably going to get about $15M in salary, plus it will take major prospects to get him. Which team would really benefit from acquiring Prince, when they can just pay cash and or 1 pick for a player they want, and have more cash and prospects to fill other needs?

If Weeks, Mcgehee and Fielder are on it then Braun must be also, right? Braun is different in that he is not in a walk year and that he doesn't have someone ready to replace him. There's not much reason to believe that Braun is actively being shopped, and there is reason to believe that others are.

was reported that he was the one that shut out Macha I don't think that's a complete version of what happened. Macha admitted that he didn't do a good job communicating in his first year when he came into ST his second year and said that he was going to make communication a priority. So, if I'm Braun or Fielder, and this dude who hasn't gone out of his way to talk to me in the past year decides to start talking to me now, so he can save his job, I'm not going to go out of my way to help this guy. I'll do what needs to be done for the team, but I'm not going to go hang with Macha because he's trying to save his job. Now if anyone can say that Braun or Fielder skipped team meetings, or they didn't get some signal they were supposed to in a game because they weren't communicating with Macha, that would be a different story. But I'm not aware of that being true.

and now Braun has it in his head that there is a suitor that wants him that may be more attractive You think this is the first time that Braun has thought another team may want him? I don't think I can recall a player that is more openly confident in himself. I'm going to guess that Braun assumes that every team would want him.

Braun might have a 5 WAR season in him, but that's largely going to depend on whether he puts the work in to become a less horrible defender. Braun has not been horrible in LF, and he was better in 2010 than he was in 2009, his first time playing the position. I don't understand why fans of this team want to exaggerate the deficiencies of some of our players.

I think the answer to that question is do the prospects project to be a championship contender? I don't know. The assumption is that Prince is gone, and there's no guarantee that Weeks is going to stay. Quite a few here don't believe that Casey will have future value compared to his past production. We have Lawrie ready in a year or two, but are there bats in the minors to replace the production that may be leaving or declining? The pitching is there to improve, but when will the pitching be at its peak to be a serious contender? 2-3 years from now? By that time there's a decent chance that Hart will be in decline. IMO, if Prince could be dealt for a solid young starter and the Brewers could trade for Greinke, I think that would represent the best combination of talent the Brewers could field for the foreseeable future. That would be risking quite a bit of talent to go for it in one year, especially building off a 77 Win club, but it could be a very exciting year. And if it doesn't work out (and chances are, even with all that talent, the Brewers wouldn't get to the WS), then you've decreased the competitive ability for years to come. I would be curious for anybody who follows the minors, if they would show a roster that they believe to be the best chance for a Brewers title based only on players currently in the system. When would that be, and how many wins realistically could the Brewers hope for in that year? If we optimistically have that chance a few years down the road, then don't make this trade. But if we think that it most likely is a mid 80's win team, there could be some justification for going for it next year.

Elite players will for the most part make it, but what about the other players? How much would it really cost to add one or two coaches to each minor league affiliate so that teams can actually work on skills during the season? If facilities aren't sufficient, how much would it really cost to build a decent gym for a couple dozen guys to use? Does it benefit players to have the winter off entirely? Could certain players benefit from living in Arizona over the winter, and work out in controlled conditions, and work on skills with coaches? I think it would be an interesting experiment for a team to build a full service facility at their ST that would include an apartment complex/dorm with a cafeteria, a nutritionist, full workout facility with team trainers staffed over the winter and team coaches that would provide coaching over the winter. All players in the system would be invited to live there during the off-season. Room and board are free as long as they participate in the program. You could even have the players have part time jobs for pay doing things a facility needs, like maintenance, groundskeeping, cleaning, cafeteria work, etc. I think there could be a decent return with that investment in improving players within the system, so that bench players could be filled within the system and improving the quality of depth in the minor leagues as well.

Them making up for their defensive deficiencies with offense has nothing to do with the quality of their defense. That is true. It is also true that the Brewers don't have anyone who is so bad defensively that they should only be a DH. McGehee simply doesn't hit well enough to justify moving him to 1B. It depends on the accompanying moves. Casey's wOBA, for example, would have put him around 14th for qualifying 1B. His offense certainly wouldn't be a plus, but for a pre-arby player who should be around average defensively at 1B, he could provide decent value.

It's a bit of an exaggeration to say that the Brewers have a few DHs on their team now. It's true that there are below average defensive players, but it's mostly more than compensated with offense.